Grassroots Comics as an alternative medium of communication stands out distinctly from mainstream comics. While mainstream comics are created by professional artists, these grassroots comics are created by common masses themselves. Individuals from diverse background have used this powerful medium to express their own self.

This has served as one of the most popular communication tool for several organizations and peoples movement. Grassroots Comics have given a new direction to representation of silent majority thereby creating a revolution in itself. These comics are easy to-make, reproduced by simple photocopier and distributed in a limited demarcated area, which invites local debates among people from different socio-economic stratum of the society.

Everybody has a story to tell but not everybody has the medium to express it. The simplicity of this approach lies in the fact that it just requires a pen, paper and something to say or in other words, requires the lines to speak for themselves.

What makes these comics different from a professional creation is the ownership on the content as well as local settings and drama. The comics are pasted up in all possible locations i.e. villages meeting place, bus stops, shops, offices, schools, on notice-boards and electricity poles or even on trees. One more important thing in these comics is that it creates a bond between the creator of the communication and the readers because of its local relevance.

Grassroots comics give critical eye to the creator of the comics, which equips him with analytical skills. WCI has implemented the methodology into education system thathelped to improve the level of interest towards education. It is being used as a tool of education both in primary as well as higher education. Grassroots comics works with rights based approach and strives for empowerment of common masses. It gives voices to people in a non-threatening way, which gives a space for dissent in a society.

Grassroots Comics aims at bringing change in the society by directly acting on the thought process, prejudices, stereotypes, mindsets through nonthreatening local stories. It is participatory in approach and hence helps in increasing local governance. All this ultimately leads to strengthening of democracy in any society.

How to use Grassroots comics-
Grassroots comics, today, are used widely in different fields and professions. Since its inception it has been widely used by different groups of people.

How can NGO communities and the people’s movement use it?
Grassroots Comics is a very powerful tool to bring the first voices into forefront. Most of the NGOs are actively working to give a voice to the unheard. This could be a useful medium for them. Apart from this it can be used for information dissemination and to raise awareness amongst the communities.

How can students and teachers use it?
Grassroots Comics is one of the best teaching-learning tools. This methodology is being used in India, Pakistan and Brazil. A number of teachers who were trained later effectively used it in their classroom. While many subjects and complicated themes can be simplified through this medium, students find this media entertaining and effectively communicative. They have been using it to put their viewpoints across and also to incorporate a visual story in their assignments.

How can an individual use it?
In the present world there is no dearth of modes of communication. The mass media mostly gives an illusion to common people that it is a representative media. Mainstream press focuses on the rich and the famous and reports mostly from a corporate viewpoint. In such a scenario individual point of view carries no weight and they hardly get the space they deserve. To put across individual opinion a medium is required that could empower every common man in the street. Grassroots Comics has filled those gaps.

How can it be used to promote literacy?
In Grassroots Comics, stories are more important than the drawings. This sentence has encouraged thousands of people to hold their pencil again and draw their first comics based on their life. This form of comics has a very simple format of 4 frames, which means with a minimum amount of text any one can convey a powerful story. Everyone is a good storyteller and we also believe that anybody can draw. By combining these two things together and with a pinch of encouragement, a comic can be produced. There are many examples available where illiterate people started telling their stories through these comics, and by simply inking their dialogues (which were written by their co-trainee with pencil) they started recognizing letters. Following the same procedures over and over again many of them became literate.
Some other fields where grassroots comics comes into play effectively are-

1. To initiate an issue-focused campaign
2. As an edu-communication tool
3. Comics journalism
4. In new media
5. For assessment in school or college exams
6. To collect people’s opinion on a particular issue
7. For reporting of any event, workshop or seminar
8. To produce issue-based comics anthologies
9. To place first voices into mainstream press through comic strips
10. To bring out monthly wallposters
11. To document the most significant changes in the society